The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1887-06-29
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SUN
DAY SERMON.
"The Heavens Opened"

TEXT: "Behold I see the heauens opened,
and the Son of man standing on the
right hand Of God Then they cried out
,vith a loud voice and stopped their
ears, and ran upon Him aUith one accord,
and cast him ont of the city, and stoned
Him; and the aritnesses laid do,cn their
clothes at young mans feet, Whose name
tuus Saul And they stoned Stephen, calling
my spirit. And he kneeled down, and cried
,rith loud roice, Lord, lay not this sin to-
their charge. And ,chen he had said this,
he fell oSleep."-Acts vii, $500.
Stephen had been preaching rousing SER
mon, and the people could not stand it. They
| resolved to do as men sometimes would like to
do in this day, if they dared, with some plain
only way to silence this man was to
knock the breath out of him. So they rushed
! Stephen out of the gates of the city, and with
; curse, and whoop, and below they brought
him to the cliff, as was the custom when they
wanted to take away life by stoning. Having
| brought him to the edge of the cliff they
pushed him OFF. After lhe had fallen they
came and looked down, and seeing that he
was not yet dead, they began to drop stones
upon him, stone after stone, stone after stone.
Amid this rain of missiles Stephen chambers
up on his knees and folds his hands, while
the blood drips from his temples to his cheeks,
from his cheeks to his garments, from his gar
n!ents to the ground; and then, looking up,
he makes two prayers-one for himself and
my spirit" that was for himself. Lord, lay
not this sin to their CHARGE" that was for his
assailants Then, from pain and loss Of blood,
he swooned away and fell asleep.
Iwant to show you to-day five pictures.
Stephen gazing into heaven. Stephen look
ing at Christ. Stephen stoned. Stephen in
his dying prayer Stephen asleep.
First, look at Stephen gazing into heaven
Before you take leap you want to know
| where you are going to land Before you
climb a-ladder you want to know to what
point the ladder reaches. And it was right
that Stephen within a few moments OF
heaven, should be gazing into it. We would
all do well to be found in the same posture.
i There is enough in heaven to keep us gazing.
A man Of large wealth may have statuary IN
the hall, and paintings in the sittlng-room,
and works of art in all parts of the house, but
he has the chief pictures in the art gallery,
and there, hour after hour, you walk with
catalogue and glass and ever increasing ad-
miration. Well, heaven is the gallery where
God has gathered the chief treasures OF His
realm. The whole universe is His palace In this
lower room where we stop there are many
adornments; tesselated floor of amethyst
are stretched out canvas on which commingle
azure, and purple, and ffron, and gold
But heaven is the gallery in which the chief
glories are gathered. There are the brightest
robes. There are the richest crowns. There
are the highest exhilarations. John says Of
it: 1.-The kings Of the earth shall
bring their honor and glory into it."
And see the procession forming, and in
the line come all empires, and the stars spring
up into an arch for the hosts to march under
They keep step to the sound Of earthquake and
the pitch of avalanche from the mountains,
and the flag they bear is the fame Of a con-
suming world, and all heaven turns out with
harps and trumpets and myriad voiced ac-
elimination Of angelic dominion to welcome
them in, and SO the kings o. the earth bring
their honor and glory into it. Do you Won
der that good people often stand like Stephen,
looking into heaven! We have a great
many friends there. There is not q
man in this house to-day 50
isolated in life, but there is some one in
heaven with whom he once shook hands. As
man gets older, the number of his celestial
acquaintance very rapidly multiplies. We
have not had one glimpse of them since the
night we kissed them goodbye and they went
away; but still we stand gazing at heaven.
As when some of our friends go across the
sea, we stand on the dock, or on the steam-
tug, and watch them. and after awhile the
hulk of the vessel disappears, and then there
is only patch of sail on the sky, and soon
chat is gone, and they are oil out Of sight,
and yet we stand looking in the same
direction so when our friends go
away from us into the future world we
keep looking down through the Narrows, and
gazing and gazing as though we expected
that they would come out and stand on some
evening cloud and give US one glimpse Of
their blissful and transfgured faces While
you long to join their companionship, and the
years and the days go with such tedium that
phey break your heart, and the viper OF pain,
and sorrow and bereavement keeps gnaw1ng
at your vitals, you still stand, like Ste
phen, gazing into heaven. You wonder
If they have changed since you saw them last.
You wonder if they would recognize your
face now, so changed has it been with trouble.
You wonder if, amid the myriad delights
they have, they care as much for you as they
used to when they gave you helping hand
and put their shoulder under your burdens.
You wonder if they look any older; and some
time, in the evening-tide, when the house is
all quiet, you wonder il you should call them
by their first name if they would not answer;
and perhaps sometimes you do make the ex-
pertinent, and when no one but God and your
self are there you distinctly call their name,
and listen, and wait, and sit gazing into
heaven.
Pass on now, and see Stephen looking upon
Christ. My text says he saw the Son OF Man
at the right hand of God. Just how Christ
looked in this world, just how he looks in
heaven, we cannot say. A writer in the time
of Christ says, describing the Saviour's per
sonal appearance, that He had blue eyes and
light complexion and a very graceful struct-
ure; but I suppose it was all guess work.
The painters Of different ages have tried to
imagine the features Of Christ, and put them
upon canvas: but we will have to wait until
with our own eyes We see him and with our
own ears we can hear Him. And yet there
is wey of seeing and hearing Him now.
/ have to tell you that unless you
sec and hear Christ on earth, you
will never see and hear Him in heaven!
Look! There he is. Behold the Lamb Of
God. Can you not see Him? Then pray to
God to take the scales off your eyes. Lcok
that way-try to look that way. His voice
comes down to you this day-comes down to
the blindest, to the deafest soul, saying:
t'Look unto Me, all ye ends Of the earth, and
be We saved, for am God, and there IS none
else" Proclamation OF universal emanclpa,
tion for all slaves. Proclamation of unlyersa!
amnesty for all rebels. Ahasuerus gathered
the Babylonish mobiles to his table; George l.
entertained the lords of England at ban.
quet; Napoleon I'LL welcomed the Gar OF
Russia and the Sultap Of Turkey to his feast;
the Emperor of Germany was glad to have our
minister, George Bancroft sit down with
him at his table; but tell me, ye who Know
most of the worlds history, what other KING
ever asked the abandoned, and the forlorn,
and the wretched, and the ontcast, to come
and sit down beside hims q, wonderful In,
vitation! You can take it to-day, and
stand at the head of the; darkest alley In all
this city, and say: "Come! Clothes for
49,. g., ,,o,, eorao throne for